


Solve for X

by Tabithian



Series: A Glitch in the System [2]
Category: Batman (Comics), DCU, DCU - Comicverse, Nightwing (Comic)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-11
Updated: 2012-07-11
Packaged: 2017-11-09 16:18:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/457479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tabithian/pseuds/Tabithian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tim spends the first few months gathering information and re-learning the way Gotham breathes around them. The inhale and exhale, the beat of her heart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Solve for X

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place after Start As You Mean To Go On, before the events of A Glitch in the System.

Gotham has a new Robin, bright and beautiful, so very alive. She runs across the rooftops, laughter ringing out, joyous, free. Fights like she loves it, moves like a dream.

“I like her,” Selina says, stepping out of the shadows with a smile touching her lips. Cocks her head in his direction. “What do you think?”

 _Yes_ , Tim thinks, small smile forming. This is what Gotham was missing, mourning all this time. “I think,” Tim says. “I think she'll be amazing.” 

(But still, something is missing.)

********

Gotham's changed in the time he's been gone (three years and more). Selina returned home ahead of him, missing Gotham and her Bats ( _the_ Bat) and some nights she'll catch up to him and tap him on the shoulder, wicked smile on her face and _chase me_ in the line of her body, laughter full and bright.

Gotham's changed in the time he's been gone, but she still has the stark, brutal kind of beauty, dark and dangerous and _home_. There are birds in the air, Oracle and her birds, certainly but. There's a Robin and a Nightwing (at the edges of things most times but there, hovering, worried), and oh, now _that's_ interesting. A bird-that-was. 

Tim spends the first few months gathering information and re-learning the way Gotham breathes around them. The inhale and exhale, the beat of her heart. 

(But still, something is missing.)

He can only do so much as he is, meant to hide in the shadows, watch unseen. But then there's Jason, and there's Red X, an old suit (stolen), now tossed aside in favor of a new one. 

Red X, forgotten, hidden carelessly. An old building, an old locker, and old lock, easily picked. An old suit, still with life left in it. His now, black and gray with splashes of red. Powered by Xenothium, notoriously hard to come by and infinitely dangerous in the wrong (right?) hands. (In his, who can say?)

"I'm going to fucking kill you!"

Red hood (Jason), spitting fury and rage, guns filling the night with flash and thunder and this is Gotham, this her voice, her song. Each Bat, each bird picks up a different section, movement, to make their own, and this is Jason's now. 

Red X laughs, voice distorted by the mask. "If you can catch me!" he calls back, because this is a game, isn't it. (No. Not a game. _Never_ a game.) It bears the faintest resemblance to one at times, one the Bats and birds and now Red X play. (Red X and the other, Gotham's newest secret, not yet to be told.)

Life and death every breath, every moment. Not a game, this, no. In this there are no clear winners or losers (what would that make Jason, then, who died and came back?) and the highest of high stakes. There is no ending, no finale. There is this and this and this, because when they're gone, there will be others to take up their mantles or create new ones. There will be others, and this will never end. (Another Batman, another Robin. Another Batgirl, another Oracle. Another Nightwing, another Red X. Another and another and another, until their memory fades to nothingness.)

Red Hood, Jason, gives chase, snarling furious (he stole Red X first), but Tim's Red X now, for whatever that's worth, and Red X has a purpose now beyond what he was created for.

********

"Who are you?" Dick, Nightwing, hesitates, unsure? "Not him." (Jason. The bird-that-was. Once Robin, then no one - gone _lost_ \- then Red X, and now Red Hood, although it seems the Bats have yet to discover that last one.) It seems Dick finally realized who'd taken the suit, used it for his own purposes. (Obvious, of course, who else would have a motive - anger, hurt, confusion - to hurt Dick like that?)

A good question, yes. Unfortunately it's not the right one. "Red X." Obvious again, because here and now, he is. (Who he is later? Another good question with an answer he's no longer sure of.) 

"Who are you?" Again, the wrong question. "Why are you wearing the suit?" Oh, and there, so close. 

"Why not? No one else was using it." He's a a secret, one of many, small and secret and Gotham's. A bug in the coding, small, easily missed. (Until it's not.) Red X. Red X is anything but. Red X belongs to no city, no person. (Red X is more than that, no matter his origins.) 

"It's not yours to wear." 

No and no and no, but it's not Dick's, either. Nor Jason's, for all that he'd taken it, given it a purpose it was never really meant for. Not theirs, not his. No one's.

"Maybe," Tim says. "Maybe not." Red X isn't his, but there's no one else to wear it, to be Red X, and he _is_ needed. (Though there are some who would disagree.)

"Catch me if you want to find out," Tim says, echoes of Jason, Red Hood, stepping to the edge of the roof.

Crisp night air, clear skies. He looks back at Nightwing, crouched and ready to spring, to bring an end to an old mistake. (Not now, too soon, but oh, the chase.) "Catch me." He steps off into nothing (crisp night air and clear skies), Nightwing in pursuit.

This is just the beginning, but like all beginnings it requires a middle and necessitates an end, but the where and when and how haven't been decided just yet. 

For now, there is only a beginning, and for now, that's all that's needed.


End file.
